Quantitative PCR (qPCR) for human T-lymphotropic virus 1 (HTLV-1) is useful for measuring the amount of integrated HTLV-1 proviral DNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Many laboratories in Japan have developed different HTLV-1 qPCR methods. However, when six independent laboratories analyzed the proviral load of the same samples, there was a 5-fold difference in their results. To standardize HTLV-1 qPCR, preparation of a well-defined reference material is needed. We analyzed the integrated HTLV-1 genome and the internal control (IC) genes of TL-Om1, a cell line derived from adult T-cell leukemia, to confirm its suitability as a reference material for HTLV-1 qPCR. Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) showed that HTLV-1 provirus was monoclonally integrated in chromosome 1 at the site of 1p13 in the TL-Om1 genome. HTLV-1 proviral genome was not transferred from TL-Om1 to an uninfected T-cell line, suggesting that the HTLV-1 proviral copy number in TLOm1 cells is stable. To determine the copy number of HTLV-1 provirus and IC genes in TL-Om1 cells, we used FISH, digital PCR, and qPCR. HTLV-1 copy numbers obtained by these three methods were similar, suggesting that their results were accurate. Also, the ratio of the copy number of HTLV-1 provirus to one of the IC genes, RNase P, was consistent for all three methods. These findings indicate that TL-Om1 cells are an appropriate reference material for HTLV-1 qPCR.
Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 (HTLV-1) was the first retrovirus to be found in humans (1, 2). HTLV-1 is a cause of adult T-cell leukemia (ATL), HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP), and HTLV-1-associated uveitis (3). Areas where HTLV-1 is endemic are distributed across several different regions, including southern Japan, the Caribbean, South America, and tropical Africa (4, 5). A recent report has shown that the area affected by this infection has expanded from the southern part of Japan to the entire country, particularly the Tokyo metropolitan area (6). Diagnostic tests for HTLV-1 infection are performed mainly with serological assays, such as enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay, particle agglutination assay, and Western blotting. Recently, another diagnostic test has been developed. Quantitation of integrated proviral DNA in peripheral blood (proviral load [PVL]) can be performed by quantitative PCR (qPCR) as a risk assessment for ATL or HAM/TSP (7,8).A few studies reported that several samples were positive for viral DNA when tested by PCR even though those samples had been found seroindeterminate for HTLV-1 when tested by Western blotting (9, 10). Their results suggest that HTLV-1 qPCR could be used as an additional test to confirm infection in seroindeterminate samples.Although many laboratories have developed qPCR methods for HTLV-1 detection in Japan, a wide variety of testing methods are used. For example, the target region, primers and probes, and internal control (IC) genes vary among the laboratories (8,(11)(12)(13)(14)(15). These variations lead to significa...